This Cursed House

In this Southern gothic horror debut, a young Black woman abandons her life in 1960s Chicago for a position with a mysterious family in New Orleans, only to discover the dark truth: they’re under a curse, and they think she can break it.

In the fall of 1962, twenty-seven-year-old Jemma Barker is desperate to escape her life in Chicago--and the spirits she has always been able to see. When she receives an unexpected job offer from the Duchon family in New Orleans, she accepts, thinking it is her chance to start over.

But Jemma discovers that the Duchon family isn’t what it seems. Light enough to pass as white, the Black family members look down on brown-skinned Jemma. Their tenuous hold on reality extends to all the members of their eccentric clan, from haughty grandmother Honorine to beautiful yet inscrutable cousin Fosette. Then the shocking truth comes out. Jemma learns the Duchons are cursed--and they believe only she can free them.

As Jemma wrestles with the gift she’s run from all her life, she unravels deeper and more disturbing secrets about the enigmatic Duchons. Secrets that stretch back over a century. Secrets that bind her to their fate if she fails.

Del Sandeen lives in northeast Florida, where she works as a copy editor and writes speculative fiction. Her work has appeared in FIYAH: Magazine of Black Speculative Fiction, Nightlight podcast, and Gay Magazine. This Cursed House is her debut novel. She can be found on X @DelSandeen.